buddha-canned

SPOILER
AHEAD
TOP CHEF
Restaurant Wars
Episode 11 Season 4

I am angry. Sad, bummed, disappointed and in his own words, bitter. VERY.


It's the end of the road for the fiery tempered and super talented Dale Talde in the Top Chef trip and I will miss him. Le sigh. He was doing so well and produced very consistent food in lieu of some recent occasions but then even I had to cringe at the sound of butterscotch miso scallops and groan at his lack of knowledge or inexperience with a traditional Asian cuisine like laksa. I love my curry laksa rich, super spicy and assam laksa tangy with a slight sour taste from the lime but Lisa's laksa just looked bad and unappetizing with very thin and watery looking soup. Spike was smart to stay out of the kitchen to take care of front of house and let the battle of exec chef Dale and sous chef Lisa war out for the last time.

To make the whole situation for Dale as bad as it could get, Anthony Bourdain, was the guest head judge of the Restaurant Wars episode and I was literally cringing with delight when it came to him seeing 'Mai Buddha' in the kitchen. Like who else but Tony could be the harshest critic of Asian cuisine especially when it is well known that he loves Asian food. It was just not Dale's night to shine when he very well could have shown his skills except that his attitude got the better of him combined with some bad decisions made and sloppy execution, which all just led to his eventual downfall. He did not deal with the stress well enough and everything just crashed and burn right before him in the end.


With that said, I hope he's still doing well at Buddakan but now I've only got two of the remaining top three people whom I really wanted to see at the finals battle it out for the grand prize. I hope Stephanie and Richard at least make it to the final two and kick those other non-deserving cheftestants' asses out. And they know who they are. And to cap Dale's farewell off, the dude cried in the exit interview. All the walls are breaking down to reveal a soft squishy inside which is not such a bad thing after all.

For a better composed, well rounded opinion and written review of this episode and past ones, these sites are great and awesome.

hot chocolate

After watching this week's episode of Top Chef, I am just spazzing myself over the irresistibly, adorable and hot pastry chef, Johnny Iuzzini.


This week's episode finally had the cheftestants creating desserts in the Quickfire Challenge for the delectable Johnny. Unfortunately there weren't too much variations from the usual chocolate cake, buttermilk cake, and traditional souffle and pavlova. Though, Richard's weird looking banana scallop dessert and Dale's halo-halo which looked too much like ais-kacang to me were the better of the bunch. And as much as I hate to say it, Richard won yet again for his odd take on bananas. Damn, he's the type of guy you just love to hate yet you can't stop rooting for him.

Even this chick is excited about Darling Johnny.

Where have you been all my life? Well, all my life since I got into dessert and pastry type cooking. Which makes it about two or three years now. In any case, immediately after the show, I googled the dude and found out that in addition to being the guest judge in this week's Top Chef episode, he was voted as New York City's Sexiest Chef and won numerous James Beard awards and the restaurant Jean-Georges that he works in was awarded the very prestigious three Michelin Stars. He is one of the best pastry chefs in the USA if not the world currently.

And how can one not love a guy with a huge ass tatt on his biceps/triceps? And that cheeky looking smile and grin. I will be awaiting for your new pastry cook book; Dessert Four Play with anticipation. Or if someone is willing to sponsor me that book that would be fantastic too.


I'm thinking of doing like a weekly recap of each Top Chef episode. I mean I know there are many blogs out there which do that already but it's the thought and words that count, right.

if you can't stand the heat

Get out of the kitchen! Top Chef kitchen that is.


Yes, it is latest season of Top Chef that I'm talking about and it's already the second episode down and second contestant out.


So far I'm currently rooting for "Kiwi" Mark, "Fauxhawk" Richard and "Tulan" Dale. It's not strange that they're all guys by the way and that the two persons eliminated first were women.


I'm looking forward to more kitchen disasters, tasting nightmares and of course dining divine. Hopefully my favourites will last long and well into the competition and so far they're doing quite alright provided they don't screw up something big.


Someone make some dessert! And no I'm not talking about some tiny looking banana bread cocktail thing.